While the townspeople raise their pitchforks over their heads and march toward their neighborhood AIG telephone support rep’s home, Long Island has it’s own little bonus bonanza quietly brewing in the Suffolk County fire district of Gordon Heights.  According to Newsday :

The Gordon Heights fire district – which some residents are trying to dissolve because it’s the most expensive in the state – approved using district funds Tuesday to buy a $1,019 bracelet for a commissioner and to spend $20,600 on an installation dinner, according to notes of the meeting taken by a resident.

Obviously, it would be undignified to have a spaghetti dinner when it comes to installation.  This is an important event, which could explain why, in a district with 50 volunteers, 190 people plan to show.

The Gordon Heights dinner is set for Saturday at Villa Lombardi’s restaurant in Holbrook. About 190 people are slated to attend, according to a woman answering the phone at the catering hall, who declined to discuss the menu. The department has approximately 50 volunteers.

I personally hope they get a choice of entrées.  Otherwise, it would be a rip-off.  Since this is taxpayer money paying for this dinner, it would be terrible if it was a rip-off, right?  I’m thinking, surf and turf at minimum.  And drinks should obviously be included.  Some of these guys like a drink with dinner, and why shouldn’t they?

And then there’s the bracelet.  I mean, how petty can you get.  Here’s a commissioner who’s worked very hard passing budgets and arranging installation dinners (the menus don’t pick themselves, you know), and she gets a bracelet for a grand as a little thank you.  You cheap ingrates, who would deny such a hard worker a little wrist candy.

James Kelly, chairman of the district’s board of commissioners, said yesterday that he saw no problem with the legality of buying the bracelet.

After all, that fire district lawyer, the one who swears that if he says it’s okay, it must be okay, knows better than to let that little thing in the New York State Constitution prohibiting the use of public monies to pay for private gifts get in the way.  Everybody does it, and it’s not like anybody’s going to stop you.  Laws, schmaws.  AG Cuomo’s too busy thinking AIG and the next election cycle to worry about how government’s openly buy gifts for each other.  And besides, it’s not nearly as bad as school district lawyer pensions, right?

It’s not quite that Long Island is a cesspool of waste, greed and illegality, though it might appear that way to the disinterested observer.  It’s just that we know how to show our appreciation to the people who really matter.  And somebody has to pay for it.